(CNN) – The baby boomer generation's efforts at creating social justice dramatically transformed history - from the Vietnam War to gay rights.

Even institutions that kept tradition at their very core - institutions such as the Roman Catholic Church - were radically changed by this generation.

Within the church, perhaps the biggest agents of this change were its nuns. A wave of new thought during the 1960s opened cloister doors.

While modernization of the church did leave fewer nuns in the pipeline to carry out work in the health care and education fields, the ones who stayed - this baby boomer generation of religious sisters - undertook a kind of grass-roots, social justice-oriented health care.

If asked to name the monumental chapters in Jewish history over the past century, people are likely to name the Holocaust or the founding of the state of Israel.

Overlooked and largely unknown, especially among younger generations, is a tale that spanned decades and transcended politics, people and places.

It is the story of a campaign that began in the 1960s and demanded freedom of religion, speech and movement for Soviet Jews – and, by extension, others – who lived behind the Iron Curtain. A new group that wants the Soviet Jewry movement remembered says it belongs in history books, not just Jewish books, and can be a model for confronting human rights abuses that exist now.

Even from the early days, this was a movement that spoke to a broader audience. FULL POST

The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team.